Nurses, especially those in the field, are not the only people who have suffered cardiac arrest and died after getting a heart attack.
But many people are not aware of the dangers of doing so, a new study suggests.
In fact, nursing homes are not just dangerous places, they are a serious danger to people who are nursing, and their deaths are preventable, says Dr. Jennifer Littman, a professor of nursing at the University of Washington.
The study looked at the deaths of 846 nursing homes in the U.S. between 1996 and 2012, with the average number of nursing homes per state reaching 810.
It found that the number of people who died in nursing homes increased from 4.3 per 100,000 residents between 1996 to 2012 to 8.3 in 2012.
In the first 10 years of the study, the average age of nursing home residents was 47, but as the population increased, so did the number dying from the disease.
The researchers looked at three risk factors that were identified as contributing to the increased risk of death in nursing home patients: the number nursing home resident was over the age of 40, the number residents had a history of heart disease, and the number resident was male.
The number of residents over 40 increased from 2.6 per 100 to 4.1 in the first decade of the new study, while the number who had a cardiac disease also increased from 1.9 per 100 in 1996 to 3.2 in 2012, the study found.
The authors note that these factors are important, but the findings were consistent across all of the three risk groups, even though the number and age of residents was increasing.
“There was a very strong association between the number or age of resident and mortality,” Littmann said.
“In other words, it was not just the number that was increasing, but also the type of resident.”
Littsman said that even after taking into account other factors, including age and type of health insurance, nursing home deaths were still higher than the general population.
“The nurses were very much the exception, and it was the nursing homes that were more dangerous,” she said.
Nursing homes are also places where there is a greater risk of accidents, the authors write.
A recent survey by the Center for American Progress found that nearly 60 percent of nursing school graduates who were killed in nursing in 2012 had been involved in a motor vehicle accident.
The report also found that in 2010, 6 percent of the nursing staff in nursing facilities had had a personal injury in the past year, with injuries like broken ribs and broken bones.
“Nursing homes are a very dangerous place for many people,” Lippman said.
